Saturday, December 20, 2008

sunday scribblings - late

One, two, one, two. She stamps her feet on the ground trying to wake them up from a near frosty death. Pulling her beanie another inch down to her ears, she looks towards the end of the road. The street is packed with cars moving slowly to avoid hitting a crazed Christmas shopper in a shopping-rush. She doesn't look at the cars near her, only to the very end of the road, where new cars come along. That's the first chance she has of seeing the car and she already knows none of those who approach her are the one she is expecting to see.

She looks into her hands, even redder now than a minute before, and decides to throw the rest of her cake away. She only bought it to entertain herself while she was waiting but after a couple of bites it went from being a greasy, characterless cake to being an icy, greasy, characterless cake. A dark-haired man walks by holding hands with a little girl, dressed in pink from head to toe. She notices her little gloves have a small embroidered heart. A remarkable cloud of steam comes out of her mouth as she lets out a sigh. As a child she enjoyed playing with her friends pretending they were smoking. She has never stopped being amused by the steam occurence.

She looks into her watch and then to the end of the road impatiently. Perhaps she should return to the old techniques of counting how many red cars pass by, to help time pass. After counting two cars she gives up and checks her mobile phone, to see if it's still working.

'Hey!' a familiar voice makes her turn around. Finally! A man and a small girl are standing in front of her, faces pink with the cold and big smiles on their faces.

'You're late!' she replies, unable to stop smiling herself. 'Where have you been? I was worried!'

'Ah, you know, we found a toy shop in our way.' he replies, winking conspicuously at the little girl.

'I thought you were bringing the car.' she says as they start walking along the road.

Brrrr! I'm shivering from your vivid scene of cold weather, some of which we are experiencing right now in the Seattle area where we are visiting my son and his family for Christmas amidst an unusual storm of ice and snow.